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Kyler Murray announces he is opting out of the MLB Draft

Kyler Murray announces he is opting out of the MLB Draft

Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports

Kyler Murray, the Allen High School quarterback who has signed a letter of intent to play for Texas A&M, has tweeted that he is pulling out of consideration for the MLB Draft.

Murray has spent most of this baseball season playing DH due to a shoulder injury, but he has played OF and 2B historically, and has been viewed as a potential high draft pick, with folks such as Keith Law and Kiley McDaniel, as well as Baseball America, ranking him among their top 50 draft prospects.  With the local ties, there was some thought that the Rangers might select him and try to offer him enough to buy him out of his commitment to A&M.  The numbers that have been floated as the price have been around $5M, though I've been of the belief that $3-3.5M could be enough, especially given Murray's size makes him a marginal NFL QB prospect.

With this draft class being weak, Murray declaring he won't sign could prompt a team with a premium pick, such as the Rangers, to select him with the plan not to sign him, in order to get a compensatory pick (and the associated slot money) in the 2016 draft.

UPDATE -- Apparently, Murray has submitted a letter to MLB which will make him ineligible to be drafted at all, making the "draft Kyler and don't sign him" gambit no longer an option.